Although Ron Paul announced last week that he will no longer campaign in primary states that have not voted this year, he urged those who support his candidacy for president to continue organizing in states that have voted, in order to win delegates to the national convention.
And those activists are doing just that, sometimes with the assistance of Paul, who spoke Friday night at the Minnesota Republican Convention, delivering his stump speech marinated in Libertarian values.
Although delegates are awarded in primaries and caucuses, in many cases that is just the first step toward selecting those who will represent their state in Tampa. Paul supporters are packing some of these delegate committees in states like Washington, Arizona, Nevada and Iowa in order to have more Paul representation at the Tampa Times Forum in August. And Saturday night in St.Cloud, Minnesota he took 12 of 13 delegate slots that are now headed to Tampa.
Regardless of how successful Paul supporters are in amassing more delegates before the convention, they're already making plans for a major event to be held (they hope) at the Florida State Fairgrounds for the entire weekend (August 24-26) right before the RNC.
This article appears in May 17-23, 2012.